Airlines

Category Archives for Airlines.

U.S. CDC Takes On American Airlines: Government Health Agency Blows It Again

by Gary Leff

Jun 30 2020

CDC Director Robert Redfield has something to say about American Airlines. He thinks it’s horrible that American will sell middle seats on planes, which he explained in response to a question by Senator Bernie Sanders, In doing so he seems not to know that American Airlines hasn’t blocked middle seats throughout the pandemic, and other airlines like United haven’t done so either.

It’s troubling that six months into the coronavirus crisis the CDC is only just now studying whether or not distancing on planes matters.

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Delta Brings Back On Board Booze Starting Thursday

by Gary Leff

airplane seat
Jun 30 2020

U.S. airlines eliminating inflight alcohol is as much cost-cutting as it is a coronavirus protection measure. Serving a customer tomato juice isn’t safer than serving that tomato juice with vodka. Eliminating booze in domestic economy, where airlines were charging for it, is another measure – because that eliminates the need for a payment transaction, an interaction between flight attendant and passenger. Still, American Airlines dropped alcohol service in “Main Cabin Extra” extra legroom coach, where it was previously free. Delta eliminated it even in first class as well as their “Comfort+” extra legroom coach seating. When few people were traveling, and there was little competition in service, the bet was this didn’t matter. Of course dropping meals and booze from most flights meant little reason to ‘buy up’ to a bigger seat (especially when Delta,…

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Dear American Airlines, Masks Don’t Help When Your Employees Won’t Wear Them

by Gary Leff

Jun 29 2020

My home state of Texas is seeing a surge of cases, including in the Dallas area. But American Airlines flight crew at DFW and Dallas-based ground staff were photographed not wearing masks.

When airline employees don’t wear masks, they’re endangering passengers and scaring them away. That’s bad for business. And when employees don’t wear masks, passengers model them. It’s tough to get passengers to wear masks when pilots don’t.

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What Will American Airlines Become When This Is All Over? CEO Says They’re Re-Building From Scratch

by Gary Leff

Jun 29 2020

A crisis is an opportunity to rethink the business. In normal times there are plenty of good reasons not to take chances, and too many entrenched interests standing in the way. Those are largely swept away. And the old arguments favoring the status quo hold little weight when the status quo is no longer an option.

Parker is right that the pandemic and rebuilding the airline’s routes and traffic from almost zero is an opportunity to re-think the business. Unfortunately he does not articulate here a creative new vision for how American Airlines might do that.

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5 Reasons The Airlines Won’t Get The Second Bailout They’re Asking For

by Gary Leff

cash
Jun 28 2020

Airlines want another bailout. They’ve been laying the groundwork for two months. The major unions are asking for full payroll through March. The American Airlines pilots union, at least, is trying to frame the subsidies as pro-consumer calling it the government ‘buying all the middle seats’ although in many ways that’s an even worse idea.

There are two things the airlines have going for them, and five reasons a bailout just isn’t going to happen a second time.

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American Airlines Planning International Route Announcement

by Gary Leff

Jun 28 2020

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker shared with pilots last week that they’re planning an international route announcement in a couple of weeks. The flights they’ll be adding soon have already been shown to pilots, who had to bid on which trips to take. They’re also going to share plans for which flights they’ll run next summer – and which they won’t.

Senior Vice President Vasu Raja then went on to explain how they’re deciding which flights to add, and dropped two that look likely to start back up in August.

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Will American Airlines File Bankruptcy?

by Gary Leff

depressed businessman leaning his head below a bad stock market chart
Jun 28 2020

There’s no question American Airlines, and all of the major U.S. airlines, survive 2020. The federal government gave them over $50 billion. The question is what revenue looks like in 2021, and whether airlines can get closer to breaking even including debt service.

Once that happens though if American Airlines is carrying more debt, with greater debt service, they’ll financially underperform the industry. And then Chapter 11 bankruptcy starts looking attractive in order to get competitive costs. Financial markets appear to be predicting there’s a reasonable chance of it. Doug Parker says it’s not in the cards – and stands to lost out personally if they do given his 2.4 million shares in the company.

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